Definition
by the-anonymous-c
Summary: Drabbles based on Near and Mello in alternating viewpoints , spurred by words selected at random from the dictionary.
1. mother

**mother: **_**n. **_**1. **A female parent. **2. **A woman having some of the responsibility or authority of a mother. **3. **A creative source; origin.

It would have been easier, Near thinks, to have said he didn't remember her. Because when they dragged him into Roger's narrow, lightless office at Wammy's and asked him to explain himself, _give a little bit about what you remember, _it would have been too easy to sit and shiver and say, "Sorry?" over and over, wide eyes and looking lost. So he couldn't have played up the foreign angle, like he'd heard some of the others talking about doing; well, that wasn't necessarily true, he could have gone for French Canadian and they might have let it slide. They were only wanting to help after all. But well-meaning or not, he thinks, looking at the faces of Roger across the expanse of mahogany from him, and at the woman who brought him in, a short, dimpled kindly thing, divulging one's insides is where trouble starts. One could lose a lot. Of course, there wasn't much to be lost anymore.

But then, he just said it.

"She's gone," and he feels the tears prick at his eyes but he doesn't let them come and everyone stares and waits.

"Who did it?" the woman asked hesitantly, and Roger starts, rising halfway from his desk like he was going to tell her to stop, but he remains sitting, moving like he is only adjusting himself, and Near is left staring at the grains of his desk, pretending to be figuring out how to answer. He isn't. All he's doing is seeing what has happened, seeing the flames rise up hot and putrid and choking and waking not knowing where he is.

They've got it wrong. And though he wasn't planning on saying anything, though that's the smart choice, the choice he should make, he says, "That wasn't her. Not my mother. My aunt."

They only look at him, expecting more, and Roger says, in his attempt at a consoling voice, "I see. We were told... Where is your mother, Nate? Is she around, then? Is there some way we can contact her?"

Only something one would ask a genius child, Near would muse in retrospect, but at the time he opens his mouth to answer, to make the old man and the woman stop staring so much, he is flooded with a rush of images, of the white cotton curtains blowing in the wind, and her laughter, the sound of a puzzle being spilled out across the floor, the rough feel of the edges of each individual piece, the sound of singing close in his ear, "Mon petit enfant...". Then the smell of chemicals, over-scrubbed floors to fight infection, all white everywhere. Talks of custody he doesn't understand.

Sterile white forever.

"She's gone," he says to Roger, again, like a broken record, and then he starts to cry.

Roger does get up this time, and accidentally he knocks over the can of pencils on his desk, and they fall, showering Near's lap and the floor between him and the desk in an explosion of bright yellow and rubber erasers.

"There, there," the woman says, coming over, and moving to take Near by the shoulders. He flinches back, though she's too distracted by her own illusions of being a compassionate caregiver to pick up on it.

"Fifty-seven," whispers Near.

The woman stops, and Roger, a question forming on his lips, closes his mouth and opens it again in a new, a safer semblance.

"What was that, my boy?" He adds the last part like an afterthought.

"Fifty-seven," Near intones. His vision, still blurred, is fixed on a point behind Roger's head, but he lets his eyes drift down to the floor, only for a moment, at the scattered pencils, some of which have rolled under the desk and are now lost to sight. It doesn't matter. He caught them falling.

"I see," Roger says, some mass greed, some dawning of glee forming in his eyes. Near's vision slowly unblurs. It's over.

**a/n:** ***disclaimer here* I don't own anything, obviously. ****Please review if you've read and tell me what you think! If I get enough reviews from people who'd like to see more, I'll update again soon : )**


	2. aggressive

**aggressive: **_adj. _**1. **Inclined to hostile behavior. **2. **Bold and enterprising. **3. **Intense or harsh, as in color.

"Give that back, Mello!"

The boy's anguished cry rises out over the green, as Mello sprints away, around the edge of the house, now through the invisible goal some of the other boys are using for a soccer game.

"Score!" He raises the plastic ant farm above his head and unceremoniously chucks it to the ground, hoping for a dent in the wet earth. To the sounds of Ricky's screaming, Mello fingers the chocolate kisses in his other hand, pressing on the places where they've melted. They'd be really good in his mouth right now, but he's got to wait until he's inside, until he's hit Safe Zone Number 1.

The loud huffing of a chunky boy laboring for breath alerts him to Ricky's persistence. Mello turns around and smirks at the round-faced boy. How did Ricky even get into Wammy's anyway? He's always like thirtieth on the list, and if you're going to be thirtieth, you might as well not exist, to Mello's eight-year-old but infallible logic. Mello would love to lord number one all over his fat face, just to show him that really, a loser can have an ant farm anywhere, but the time's not right yet. He just needs to beat Near. Maybe this next test will do it—it's an essay-question test, and Near's not the best at essays—Mello's brow furrows.

"Hey!" Ricky shouts. His knees are red from the exertion of running. It's no wonder he wasn't in on this soccer game, Mello thinks. The boys never pick Ricky. They would pick Mello, first thing, he knows, if he weren't always a team leader when he chooses to play.

"They're probably hurt!" Ricky yammers as the bells begin to toll, signaling the noon lesson. Mello snorts.

"Ants, hurt? Give me a break. Go get 'em if you want 'em."

The soccer boys are heading in now, and a few of them stop to watch the interactions between Ricky and Mello, but none stay too long; they know its dangerous territory.

"Give me back my chocolate, at least," Ricky says. His face is scrunched up and he looks like he's going to cry. There's also repressed danger there, but what the heck is he going to do about it? Nothing. That's what Mello thinks.

"These are gonna taste really good!" Mello shouts, just as Ricky puffs up to him, and he darts away, imagining just how fast he's running, as fast as those limber men on television who win every race, all the way through the doors of Wammy's, those bells clanging like the heralding of his reign. He's over the cold stone floors in his bare, dirty feet, and he's clambered up behind the statue of that old guy with the beard, back where no one looks. He can hear Ricky coming after him now, with a couple of his friends—they've obviously decided there's strength in numbers, since not a one of them would go up against him alone, but he's already back where no one can see, up in Safe Zone Number One—always chart your safe zones well, Dmitri would say, along with his cardinal rule, the number one—out on the slick, cold streets, darting between bodies, waiting for any opening, any lack of awareness to take what was needed—a wallet, a coin, food—for the older ones, a life. Be aggressive. Watch always.

Never let your hunger die, or you'll be next.

Mello sits in the space between the statue and the wall, skinny knees pressed up against the stone man's back as the bells finally cease their clanging, and licks the last of the chocolate from the corners of his mouth. If he's timed it right—and he has—he still has thirty seconds to get to class on time.

**a/n: This one took a little longer to get up than I thought it would. Please take a minute to review and tell me what you think!**


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